A little Thai reading ability can go a long way. My wife and I are traveling from Udon to a tiny village about 170km to the east. My paper road maps don't show the village. Google Maps, on the other hand will direct me to the school in the village.....all the necessary turn points and distances included. In the ขอเส้นทาง column, you type in the name of the origination point and the destination point (both in Thai). And up pops all the necessary info to make the journey an easy one.

Just more incentive to keep up with the Thai studies when the going gets tough.

A couple more:

It is useful for menus which are written in both Thai and English. Often the English does not correspond with what is written in Thai, so to get what you want you read the Thai part of the menu instead.

Public transport: often buses only have the names of places along the routes in Thai language.

I agree about the menu. I went to an Italian place and the menu was in Italian, English and Thai. I wanted to order lasagne and there were 3 listed. The English descriptions weren't very clear so I read the Thai and found them to be much more literal (tomato sauce/beef, vegetarian, etc.).